


To Love and Lose

by Tooti_Fruity



Category: Futurama
Genre: F/M, M/M, haha i like suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 14:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17664314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tooti_Fruity/pseuds/Tooti_Fruity
Summary: Part of Fry wonders, sometimes, what resides within him that thinks he’s above loving Bender.Or, a series of vignettes from Fry's perspective about the realization that his best friend is in love with him.





	To Love and Lose

**Author's Note:**

> come suffer with me my children

When Fry wakes up in the year three thousand, it all sort of goes downhill from there.

He never really felt comfortable in his previous life, sure, but it was, at least, familiar. Everything about the new world feels fast and complicated and unforgiving, whirring past him in a blur of color and light while he remains stagnant and unchanging. Between delivering parcels to far off worlds and circumnavigating the confusing new reality he finds himself in, there’s little time for self-reflection, which is fine, because hey, he’s well aware of the fact that he’s not exactly the sharpest knife in the kitchen.

Two things remain the same over the years; his adoration of Turanga Leela and his friendship with Bender Rodríguez. He finds himself either interacting with or obsessing over Leela or goofing around with Bender most of the time. It comes naturally, like the change of the seasons or the rotation of the Earth. And while he can always expect complications when it comes to Leela, his relationship with Bender remains simple and easy, like they’re little kids sharing a bed or trading baseball cards on the playground. Bender swears, and he smokes, and he cares about absolutely nobody but himself; it makes their dynamic easy and clean cut. That’s the way it’s always been.

And as the years pass, realizing Bender feels things as richly and deeply as a human doesn’t complicate things, since being able to feel doesn’t mean he necessarily _cares_. He’s Fry’s best friend, of course, but they’re guys, and they don’t need the kind of closeness women can have. His dad always said that real men don’t talk about their feelings, and Fry’s never been so bright, but his dad was always pretty world wise, so taking his advice at face value doesn’t seem like a mistake.

Liking Bender is easy, but loving Leela is easier.

******************************

Fry doesn’t know when it occurs to him that what he has with Bender isn’t considered a normal platonic relationship; it didn’t start out this intimate, simply evolves over the years. They go from watching TV to bathing together, from sleeping in the same room to sharing a bed; it’s something he assumed might have become more normalized in three thousand, but it’s not. If anything, it’s weirder coming from _Bender_ of all people. Bender, who shirks any physical contact that isn’t from Fry or a girl. Bender, who constantly reminds Fry that people might think they’re robos if they say or do certain things in public. Bender, who despite being a certified robot Casanova, continues to look after and watch out for Fry like his life depends on it. Fry has had best friends before, but he’s never had someone watch his back like Bender does, and it doesn’t land that there may be more there for a while.

When it does, it’s like a rug has been pulled out from under him.

******************************

At first, he doesn’t know how to bring it up. How do you drop that kind of bomb, expose that kind of reality? It’s deep and intense and _ugly_. Bender isn’t supposed to be capable of love; him being robotic, unfeeling, objective…that was what made this easy.

The thing is, it’s not even that Bender is a guy, or a robot, or anything. Fry knows he’s bisexual, figured it out within the first few weeks of living in the year three thousand. He has no issue with homosexuality, though the echo of his father’s voice throwing around words like _faggot_ is enough to make his skin crawl.

He doesn’t know what resides in him that thinks he’s above loving Bender when it would be so easy to. They live together, spend most of their times with each other, even feel a deep emotional bond. But when he reflects on himself, no matter how deep he digs, he can’t muster anything other than an intense platonic affection.

Sometimes, Fry thinks the tension is harder on him than it is Bender.

******************************

It comes up one night, when Fry is drunk and exhausted and irritable. He snaps at Bender, gripes that it’s hard to live with someone who wants to jump your bones. It’s nasty, and it’s mean, and it’s completely out of character, but it strikes a nerve nonetheless, and it leaves his head reeling when Bender just slowly turns to face him, eyes boring into him as he muses,

“It’s about time, dullhorn.”

And if Fry drunk-cries when he’s in bed with Bender later, the other doesn’t hear him. Or at least, he pretends like he doesn’t hear him.

******************************

When Fry proposes to Leela, it goes well. She cries and says yes, he laughs and holds her tight. It’s perfect. It’s picturesque. It’s downright lovely.

Bender, like always, doesn’t really have a reaction. He just sort of shrugs and says, ‘go get her, buddy’ and leaves it at that. Fry wonders if, maybe, Bender cried when he left. If he wondered why Fry doesn’t love him. If he doesn’t understand why Fry wouldn’t give him a chance.

If Fry knew the answer, he would’ve told him a long time ago.

The day after the proposal, Leela and Fry enter work, hand in hand. When Bender sees them, he excuses himself, citing that he needs a beer, and for the rest of the day, he avoids Fry like the plague. It brings him some sick kind of satisfaction that Bender does, indeed, feel something.

It’s a horrible thought, but Fry thinks it anyway.

******************************

When Leela walks down the aisle, she looks beautiful, all long white dress and elegant up-do, tasteful makeup and soft, lovely features. Bender stands to his right, dressed in the top half of a tuxedo and smiling mournfully. He locks eyes with Fry at one point, and his expression is mostly unreadable. He looks perfectly neutral.

In a multiverse filled with literal aliens, this Bender is the most alien thing he’s ever encountered. He hits all the right beats, but he does so almost, with no pun intended, _robotically_. He gives a best man’s speech that’s somehow personal yet detached, throws his head back with laughter when a joke is made without _really_ laughing, lazily waves Fry goodbye when him and Leela leave the church. It’s charming. It’s perfect. It’s a farce.

******************************

The years pass by as they often do, and between kids, and Leela opening her own business, and friends coming and going, Bender disappears from his life. It’s gradual and relatively painless, but it leaves him feeling winded when he uncovers an old box with a picture of them together in it. The memories of simpler times hit him in waves, and he shakes as he tries to imagine when Bender might be now, without him. Is he living it up in some penthouse? Penniless and destitute on a street corner? Settled down with someone who he deserves, who can love him the way Fry never could?

He puts the picture away and buries the box behind a mountain of furniture in the attic.

******************************

Part of Fry wonders, sometimes, what resides within him that thinks he’s above loving Bender.

Another part of him doesn’t want to know.


End file.
